


The Apple Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree

by CattaRegina



Category: Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII Series, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Family, Gen, Humor, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 10:09:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1684538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CattaRegina/pseuds/CattaRegina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lightning is finally content with her life. Hope, on the other hand, could use a little peace and quiet. [Post-Lightning Returns.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Apple Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Contains references to minor knife violence. Nothing serious, and no injuries sustained.

There were times, Lightning had to admit, when she had kind of, sort of, really missed younger Hope.

She probably wouldn’t have traded the adult Hope – the real Hope, technically, _technically_ – if she had the choice. Having an adult Hope around had its own advantages. But sometimes she missed seeing that boy in front of her – looking up at her with those wide green eyes shining with admiration and just a bit of fear, stretching upward for every inch of height he could get, trying to find his place in the world and thinking the best route to self-discovery was through following her, through being like her – and that raw emotion in his voice, in his dreams, the belief that he could accomplish whatever goal he set for himself – she wanted to pat his head and maybe give him a hug and push him towards the future, all the time never taking her eyes off of him. Like a responsible mentor, naturally.

Most of that had changed. Not all of it – he still dreamed of a hopeful future, even if it no longer included murder… she thought? – but enough. The nervous child finding his way in the world had become a confident adult, handsome rather than adorable, and tall enough that Lightning had to look up to _him_ instead. Physically, that is. Mostly.

And that was great and all, but sometimes Lightning just wanted that cute little Hope back.

It had taken some time, and many sacrifices, and technically it would take even more time before she had a _teenage_ Hope, and, well, all right, so it wasn’t actually Hope, but Lightning would take what she could get.

She’d never seen Hope as a baby, but she estimated this was a reasonable approximation.

Unnerved by her intense stare and lack of verbalization of any sort, the toddler on her lap gurgled nervously.

“You,” Lightning said. “You are the cutest thing.”

The toddler blinked. Green eyes, Lightning thought. Almost the right shade. Took long enough. She’d been worried those baby blue ones would have stuck around forever. It wouldn’t have had the same effect. Cute, yes. Hope 2.0, no.

Hope 2.0. Yes, that was the perfect nickname. Hope should appreciate that. (He probably wouldn’t, but that wasn’t at issue.)

“Adorable,” she murmured. At that moment, Lightning may have had the urge to hug the baby. And, as there was no one watching her at that moment, her dignity would be preserved if she chose to act upon that urge. Which she might have.

Crushed by unusually strong adult arms, the toddler opened his mouth, dropped his pacifier, and began to cry.

Lightning had faced down gods, behemoths, and her little sister. Crying babies were no threat to the Saviour.

With one hand she swiftly popped the pacifier into the toddler’s open mouth. With the other, she gently smoothed back the soft fuzz of hair on his even softer head, stroking it gently. The toddler continued to stare, wide-eyed, for half a second more, before slouching forward, almost as if giving up. Nothing can resist me, Lightning thought proudly. Not even a crying baby.

Claire “Lightning” Farron, Conqueror of Crying Babies. That had a nice ring to it.

A few rooms over, Hope Estheim was engaged in a battle of his own. Two battles, in fact. And neither were going very well.

“Are you done yet?”

“No.” Hope held back a deep sigh. “I told you, I just need to finish this proposal-”

“That was five minutes ago. Are you done yet?”

“ _No_.” The second battle, against the project proposal of his latest plan for weather modification to curb the effects of climate change, would have been going much better had it not been for the interference of the first. And Hope, as luck may have it, was losing to a five-year-old girl.

Hope, as it turns out, did not have the battle skills that Lightning did.

“I’m waiting.” The little girl, who did not seem to realize that she was winning a battle against humanity’s former leader for centuries and once avatar of a god, sat down cross-legged at the foot of Hope’s desk chair. “I’m not going until you’re done.”

“It might take a while. You should probably think of something else.” Which meant Hope would have to think of something else to distract her. “What about a book? Didn’t I just buy you a new one…”

“Yesterday. I read it already.”

Hope was sure that book had been over a hundred pages long. Had he not been so distracted by the imminent deadline of five weeks from now he might almost have been proud. “Well… what about TV?”

She gave Hope a disgusted look. “Really?”

“Mummy’s iPad?”

“It’s broken.”

“How?!” That iPad was only a few months old!

“Mummy.”

Hope could not say he was surprised, but he _was_ a bit concerned. Third one this year, and it wasn’t even July.

“In that case…”

“It’s all right. I’ll find something.”

Hope murmured a “thank god” when she stood up and wandered off into another room. And he didn’t thank God very often. Or ever, actually. Hope didn’t exactly have much to thank him for.

For five glorious minutes, Hope was able to work on his nearly-completed project in peace and quiet. Had his attention not been so closely focused on the computer screen, he might have become alarmed at the sounds of cutlery rustling in the kitchen, or the pitter-patter of small child footsteps as they left the kitchen and approached his desk chair once more.

But it was difficult for Hope to ignore the feeling of something cold and blunt poking at his ankle.

He looked down to see an innocent-looking face watching him, hands outstretched to his ankle and holding… a dinner knife?

“…What are you doing?” he asked.

“Stabbing you.” As if to emphasize her point, she poked him again in the ankle with the end of the knife.

“Okay, that’s… Where did you even learn that word from? That’s not even the right way to- No. Forget it.” He was going to get this project done even if it meant living through repeated pokes with a blunt knife. That was probably a more manageable distraction. “Keep going. I’m almost done.”

“But you’ll die first.”

So she _didn't_ think he'd be finished soon? “I’ll have to be fast if I don’t want to bleed to- if I don’t want to die.”

The little girl’s face scrunched in a frown and she poked him with the knife again. Hope turned back to the computer, focused on the proposal in front of him again, and prepared to start-

“Can I go play with my little brother instead?”

Hope could have cried tears of joy. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you.” Actually, he was usually glad to see most people, but Hope didn’t feel like crushing the dreams of small children today. She could find out about Santa next year.

“Okay.” As she toddled off, Hope thought about how nice it was to not have to finish this work with the constant sensation of being poked in the ankle with a knife, and – wait a second.

He glanced down at the floor beside him. No knife.

Which meant-

Hope was out of his chair faster than he had been in centuries. Crossing rooms in seconds, he managed to reach the moving sharp object hazard about two feet from Lightning, sliding the last few on his stomach.

“Nice dive,” Lightning commented. “Have you considered the company’s baseball team?”

“I think that’s an American thing.” Hope stood up, clutching the squirming child in both hands. “Could you play with her? I need to finish this project tonight.”

“It’s Saturday. Why is she holding a knife?”

“She got it from the kitchen? I think? Could you just – take her or something-”

Lightning plucked the knife from the little girl’s hand and nonchalantly tossed it over her shoulder.

“I think she saw where that landed, Light.”

Lightning shrugged and, with a long look and a sigh of regret, moved the toddler off of her lap and onto the couch pillow next to her, where he promptly tipped over onto his side. “All right. Hand her over. But could you take Hope 2.0?” She nodded to the toddler, seemingly content to watch the world from a horizontal angle. “I can’t watch both of them.”

“Hope 2.0?” Hope shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Pick up the knife on your way back.” Lightning nodded in the general direction of the tossed object. “It’s dangerous to have that around small children.”

“And put the knife within _his_ reach?” Hope muttered, as he dropped the still-squirming girl into Lightning’s arms, picked up the baby and hoisted him onto one shoulder.

“What’s he going to do with it? Chew on it?”

“And that’s okay?!”

“It’s a kitchen knife; it’s not very sharp. No serious harm. Just keep it away from his mouth.” Lightning absently began running her fingers through the little girl’s hair.

Hope grumbled, but picked up the knife, ignoring the toddler’s sudden grabby hands, and made his way back to his abandoned computer.

“Maybe _I_ was just going to chew on it,” the little girl grumbled.

“That wouldn’t be safe.” Serah, she thought. This one looked a bit like a little Serah. Maybe if she had her hair in a ponytail on the side, like Serah’s… and maybe in something like that dress Serah used to wear when she was five, the pink one with the ruffle and the bow in the back-

Yes, Lightning thought, this was perfect. Little Hope and little Serah. She also had a secure job and a nice home and all those other things, but what was really important was two adorable children in her life that just happened to look like children she’d cared for years ago.

Living in the past wasn’t a problem, right?

The squirminess started up again on Lightning’s lap. “Could you play with me?”

“Sure?” Lightning let go of the half-hearted ponytail. “What do you want to play?”

“Can I get another kn-”

Lightning was spared from the rigours of strict parenting by the sound of the doorbell.

“Hope, can you get that,” she called.

A minute later, she concluded that Hope was, in fact, still busy.

“He must not be done yet,” the potential danger on her lap suggested helpfully.

“Who is it,” Lightning asked, rolling her eyes.

“SIS! IT’S ME!”

With perhaps more than a little reluctance, Lightning scooped the squirming girl off of her lap and went to open the door. To no one’s surprise, Snow stood on the other side, arms outstretched and covered in multiple baby slings. Each contained the sparkling eyes of a small child delighted with life, the world, and visiting their Aunty Lightning.

“Sis! So I was in the neighbourhood and I thought I’d stop by and schedule a playdate or something; how about-”

The somewhat-less-delighted-with-life child on the floor tugged at Lightning’s hands and looked up at her with a very different expression.

“Can I stab him?” she asked Lightning.

Lightning looked at Snow, then back to the child pulling at her hand.

“Okay. Just this one time.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not saying there is such a thing as a "stab gene", but you have to admit, if it existed, these kids would be guaranteed to have two copies of it.
> 
> Also, the kids do, in fact, have names. The younger one is not actually named "Hope 2.0".


End file.
